Woodland slowly recovering from Great Recession

Woodland is slowly recovering from the Great Recession but revenues are still below those for 2007 and 2008, making it difficult for the city to not just determine budget priorities for 2014-15 but finding the money to pay for them as well.

In a series of reviews leading up an anticipated June 17 adoption of the city's spending plan, Woodland City Manager Paul Navazio has been giving the council a line item tutorial of where money comes from and where it goes while maintaining a council directive to provide for long-term fiscal stability. This includes a balanced budget with "prudent reserves," as well as working with unfunded liabilities all the while providing for public safety, future economic development and maintaining things like roads and water lines.

As envisioned, the city is looking at $139 million in revenues for the next fiscal year but also anticipates about $195 million in expenses.

But one of the more difficult dilemmas will be building a reserve in the city's general fund category — calculated at $41.6 million over the coming fiscal year — and maintaining that reserve. When all the numbers are crunched, Navazio told the council recently, there's a "structural gap" of between $1.3 million and $1.5 million.

He called that "manageable," but that's somewhat reliant on the economy continuing to improve.

The general fund can be considered a "rainy day" reserve to be used for unanticipated expenses. It has been the goal of the council to build this money and the budget seems to do this over the coming years with operational deficits shrinking.

In fact, Navazio reported, the funds outlook is better than in the past, but the regional and state economy are lagging to such a degree that it wouldn't take much to throw things out of balance.

Right now, the city is managing a reserve level of 20 percent, or $7.3 million, or $2.8 million over the council's 13 percent reserve policy.

The budget is so precariously poised that even the drought could have an effect. Recent findings by economists at UC Davis predicted the drought will deal a severe blow to Central Valley irrigated agriculture and farm communities this year, and could cost the industry $1.7 billion and cause more than 14,500 workers to lose their jobs. The study was done by the UCD Center for Watershed Sciences.

Also affecting the budget is a 2 percent growth rate for the community, which affects the amount of property tax paid by landowners. The low growth rate is good news for those paying property tax, but bad news for municipalities like Woodland that get less, forcing it to rely more on sales tax revenue, which is unpredictable and doesn't provide as much money overall.

In that respect, noted Councilman and incoming Mayor Tom Stallard, people are paying for public services such as police and fire, but actually getting less because the cost of living continues to rise meaning a dollar has less value.

Regardless, the proposed budget also returns some programs and personnel that were cut during the height of the recession. Presently, there are plans for an additional code-enforcement officer as well as a half-time recreation coordinator.

Other recommendations include equipment, some of which are replacements, upgraded infrastructure at various ballfields and playgrounds, and replacing the city's K-9 police dog.

However, a variety of other services are not funded in the proposed budget such as an increase in street and road maintenance, which is already backlogged, ongoing tree pruning, public safety staffing, restoration of a full-time fire marshall, signal and street lighting maintenance, and maintaining storm sewer lines.

The proposed budget also doesn't rely on any revenue coming in from Measure J, which was approved by Woodland voters on Tuesday. Measure J extends the quarter-cent sales tax increase established by Measure V in 2010.

Advisory Measures K, L, M and N were also be approved by voters. The advisory measures would allocate monies for recreational programs including the possibility of re-opening Hiddleson Pool, library services, public safety and could help out senior citizens on fixed incomes or low-income families with their water and sewer payments.